Conservationist Richard Leakey pulled no punches in a recent debate in Gauteng, writes Fiona Macleod
There is a story about a randy young male ostrich who spots three female ostriches on the horizon and sets off after them. They are not at all interested in his advances and they run away, with the young male in hot pursuit. They keep running, but every time they look back, hes still after them.
Eventually, after he has chased them for many kilometres, the females tire of the game. They stop and promptly stick their heads in the sand. The young male, finally catching up with them, screeches to a halt in great confusion. Now what on earth happened to those three lovely girls? he ponders to himself before going on his way again.
Its a story that sprang to mind during a public debate last weekend on sustainable utilisation as a conservation strategy simply put, the theory that in order to survive, wildlife must pay its way. The decision in June by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to resume trade in ivory was prompted by three Southern African countries Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia which, like the three female ostriches, have buried their heads in the sand. South Africa, which supported their stand but did not play a direct role in the decision, is like the randy young male ostrich: it has lost the plot.
The topic of last weekends debate was Does wildlife have to pay to stay? Speaking in favour of sustainable utilisation of wildlife was John Hanks, former head of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and now executive director of the newly formed Peace Parks Foundation, which has ambitious plans to set up a numer of transfrontier reserves in Africa. Richard Leakey, Kenyas formidable palaeoanthropologist-cum-conservationist-
cum-politician, took up a stand against it and effectively blew giant holes in the sustainable-utilisation argument.
Leakey started out by berating the conservation authorities in post-isolation South Africa for ignoring the fact that they are now part of Africa and that their actions have an impact on the rest of the continent.
Robert Mugabe was unfortunately persuaded by dubious advisers to say at Cites that if a species is to stay, it must pay. It was an arrogant and irrelevant statement that deserves nothing but condemnation from people like you, he said to Hanks. It should not have been allowed to happen. It was a despicable, political statement about the value of a species that will cost us for years to come.
In his opening address at the debate, Hanks had painted a grim picture of Africa and its future. He argued that, given these circumstances, the only way to persuade African governments of the importance of preserving biodiversity is to attach an economic value to it.
Leakey replied: The only way to win this battle is to avoid the price tag … I am not personally opposed to wildlife utilisation. But restricting it to private reserves run largely by Caucasians is like sitting on a time bomb that will go bang. Biodiversity must not be regarded as the preserve of the foreigner.
We mustnt make the mistake of excluding people from their land. One way to soften the inside/outside divide is to get into community involvement. This has become fashionable now.
But, having been a champion of sharing revenue with communities, I am now opposed to it. Poor people cannot be expected to make the right judgments about the protection of species. Communities must share resources … but its not a question of asking them to get involved in managing national parks.
Boundaries [of national parks and reserves] must be kept intact and protected. We need to recognise that national parks are sacrosanct; they are not larders to be plundered … and exploited by later corrupt governments.
We must get our priorities right: nature is invaluable. Biodiversity cannot be given a price. We must stop messing about with it from a sense of guilt.
It is unrealistic to think we will go forward by saying that species must pay to stay, given Africas present constructs. It is homo sapiens who must pay. The point is that species must stay, so we must pay.
Leakey mentioned fund-raising and taxation as two of the more obvious means of getting humankind to pay for conservation. Most Africans, he said, regard wildlife as an important resource that they would want their governments to look after and they would not object to taxes being dedicated to this end. Water, for example, is generally recognised as a natural resource of economic value, and people are prepared to pay for it.
Nature-based tourism, though capable of raising large sums of money, does not provide the total solution, he said, because much of the money ends up in private pockets and is not ploughed back into conservation. Ecotourism is never going to pay for the species to stay. There has to be another agenda.
Hanks pointed out that countries such as Zimbabwe simply do not have the money to dedicate to conservation. During his time at the head of WWF, he added, he had found that foreign donors often promise huge sums, but are short on delivery.
Leakeys response was that he had embarked on a fund-raising campaign when he was appointed head of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Within one year I had raised $300-million dollars … The money is there. If you are struggling, perhaps you should revisit some of the issues I have raised during this debate.
Hanks said research had shown that management of protected areas costs about $200 per kilometre each year. But Leakey said this was an irresponsible figure: experience in the great parks of Kenya had shown that it could be reduced by 50% when the trade in ivory was banned, chiefly because poaching had virtually stopped.
He said Citess decision to resume the ivory trade was based on the argument that it was now possible to control the export of ivory. But control was not possible in the past when trade was legal about 70% of the ivory leaving Africa was unaccounted for and there was no evidence that controls would be any better now.
Leakey challenged the South African conservation authorities to come up with more innovative ways to ensure that wildlife does not disappear in the new millennium. Or they too would stand accused of simply sticking their heads in the sand.